Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ^†quṭrub_1-3 (for details of this grouping see below, section DISC; the following is a concise version of the entry in Lane vii 1885): A certain bird (species of owl; a bird that roves about by night and does not sleep; and hence strix); insects that emit light at night, glow like a candle (B); certain insect that rests not all the day, going about, or going about quickly, or, that never rests, moving about on the surface of water; light, active; [hence, app.] thief who is skilful, active, in thievishness; rat, mouse; male of the kind of demon called ġūl (= suʕlāẗ); young, or little, jinnee | sorte de petits démons, lutins, farfadets (BK); young, little dog, puppy; (certain) wolf (called ʔamʕaṭ, i.e. whose hair has fallen off, part after part, or who has become scanty, or mischievous, or malignant) | lupus glabro corpore (F); ignorant person, boasting by reason of his ignorance; coward(ly) | pusillanimous (F); light-witted | stultus (F), imbécile (BK); thrown down, prostrated on the ground, by reason of diabolical possession or wrestling | epilepsia correptus (F), homme qui tombe du haut-mal (BK); a species of melancholia | melancholy, demoniacal possession (St), mélancolie qui fait fuir la société des hommes (BK); a well-known disease, arising from the black bile, mostly originating in the month of šubāṭ, vitiating, or disordering, the intellect, contracting the face, occasioning continual unhappiness, causing to wander about in the night, and rendering the face ʔaḫḍar [here: dark, ashy, dust-coloured], the eyes sunken, and the body emaciated | werewolf (St). [A more ample description is given by Ibn Sīnā in Book iii, pp. 315 sq. SM states that he had not found this in any other lexicon than the Qāmūs. Golius explains the word as signifying lycanthropia, on the authority of al-Rāzī] | lycanthropia (F), maladie appelée lycanthropie (BK) – Lane vii (1885), with additions from Freytag1837 (F), Kazimirski1960 (BK), Bustānī1869 (B), Steingass1894 (St), Hava1899 (H).

Other attested meanings:

▪ ^†quṭrub_4: burdock plant, arctium | bardane, glouteron
▪ ^†quṭrub_5 (pl. qaṭārib): slippers | mules, chaussure sans quartier

conc

▪ ^†quṭrub_1-3: from Syr qanṭropos, from Grk lukánθrōpos ‘wolf-man’ (composed of lúkos ‘wolf’ and ánθrōpos ‘man’). Syr shows already apocope of the first syllable of the Grk original, while Ar adapted the Syr form to the FuʕLuL pattern common for animals (cf. ↗ǧundub, furʕul, ↗qunfuḏ) – Ullmann1976.
▪ ^†quṭrub_4-5: etymology unclear.

hist

Earliest attestations in HDAL:
▪ 653 CE (restless) in a verse by ʕAbd Allāh b. Masʕūd al-Huḏalī: lā ʔulfiyanna ʔaḥadakum ǧīfaẗa laylih, quṭruba nahārih.
▪ 778 CE (male ġūl) in a verse by ʔAbū Dulāmaẗ describing an old woman: mahzūlaẗu ’l-laḥyayni, man yara-hā yaqul: ʔabṣartu ġūlan ʔaw ḫayāla ’l-quṭrubi.
▪ 783 CE (restless insect, producing light at night) in a verse by Baššār b. Burd, on not finding sleep when even a quṭrub would fall asleep: yā bāna, ṭabbuki lā yanāmu, wa-qad yanāmu ’l-quṭrubu.

cogn

▪ ^†quṭrub_1-3: Syr qanṭropos (< Grk) ‘wolf-man, lycanthrope’.
▪ ^†quṭrub_4: cf. perh. ↗QṬRB_7.
▪ ^†quṭrub_5: ironical use of ^†quṭrub_2 ‘roving about at night’?

disc

▪ Ullmann1976: »Rudolf Geyer¹ hatte angenommen, daß die erste Silbe des Wortes [Grk] lukánθrōpos von den Arabern als Artikel aufgefaßt, daß al-quṭrub demnach analog zu [Grk] Aléxandros ~ [Ar] al-Iskandar, [Grk] limḗn ~ [Ar] al-mīnā usw. gebildet worden sei. Das ist schwerlich richtig, denn dann müßte al-quṭrub unmittelbar auf [Grk] lukánθrōpos zurückgehen. Das arabische Work hat aber in qanṭropos [Brockelmann1895: [Grk] lukánθrōpos, daemon nocturnus] eine syrische Vorstufe, wie schon Georg Hoffmann² und Rubens Duval³ nachgewiesen haben. Bereits im Syrischen ist die erste Silbe apokopiert, und ebenso findet sich dort bereits die regelwidrige – wenn auch nicht ganz ungewöhnliche – Wiedergabe des griechischen θ durch ṭ. Qanṭropos ist von den Arabern dann zu quṭrub weiterentwickelt worden, wobei die noch erinnerte ursprüngliche Wortbedeutung die Angleichung an ein Morphem befördert haben mag, das für viele Tiernamen gilt, z.B. furʕul ‘junge Hyäne’, qunfuḏ ‘Igel’, ǧundub ‘Heuschrecke’.«
▪ When Grk lukánθrōpos > Syr qanṭropos entered Ar it must have meant a person possessed by a demon, looking (or believing to look) like a wolf, restlessly roving around at night. From the three main ideas attached to this being – 1 the scary, wolf-like shape, 2 its restless roving about by night, and 3 its possession – a large variety of secondary values were derived in the course of time, all expressed by the n. quṭrub or the (denom.) vb.s qaṭraba (I) and taqaṭraba (II). Semantics may have developed along the following lines:

▪ ^†quṭrub_1 ‘(a certain) wolf (whose hair has fallen off, scanty, mischievous, malignant)’.
▪ ^†quṭrub_2 ‘roving around by night, without sleeping’:

2.1 bird that does so = ‘owl; strix’

2.2 insect that does so = esp. ‘glowworm’ (emitting light like the glowing eyes of the wolfman?)

2.3 man who does so = ‘thief’ (actively, skilfully moving around)

2.4 animal that does so = ‘rat, mouse’

2.5 other nightly creatures, esp. demons:

2.5.1 ‘male ↗ġūl (= suʕlāẗ)’

2.5.2 ‘young, or little, jinnee’ > hence also 2.5.2a ‘young, little dog, puppy’

2.6 restlessness:

2.6.1 ‘never-resting insect, going about quickly, moving about on the surface of water’ > hence also the generalizing 2.6.1a ‘to hasten, speed, go quickly’

2.6.2 ‘to move about one’s head’

2.6.3 ‘light, active’ (overlapping esp. with 2.3 ‘thief’)
▪ ^†quṭrub_3 ‘possessed (by a demon)’:

3.1 mental disorder, demoniacal possession, melancholy:

3.1.1 a species of melancholia: ‘mélancolie qui fait fuir la société des hommes (BK), a well-known disease, arising from the black bile, mostly originating in the month of šubāṭ, vitiating, or disordering, the intellect, contracting the face, occasioning continual unhappiness, causing to wander about in the night and rendering the face ↗ʔaḫḍar [here: dark, ashy, dust-coloured], the eyes sunken, and the body emaciated; lycanthropy | werewolf (St)’

3.1.2 result of disordered intellect = ignorance, stupidity, hence: ‘ignorant person, boasting by reason of his ignorance; light-witted | stultus (F), imbécile (BK)’

3.1.3 result of melancholy that makes afraid of people = cowardice, hence: ‘coward, cowardly’

3.2 concomitant action / physical indication of possession: ‘to throw o.s. down, prostrate on the ground, by reason of diabolical possession or wrestling | epilepsia correptus (F), homme qui tombe du haut-mal (BK)’

▪ ^†quṭrub_4 ‘burdock plant, arctium | bardane, glouteron’: value reported by Dozy1881; semantics perh. related to ↗QṬRB_7 ^†qaṭrīb or qiṭrīb ‘peg by which the oxen are tied to a plough, plough-peg’ (cf. postBiblHbr qēṭrāḇ, Aram qeṭrabâ ‘cotter-pin, crosspiece of a yoke’, both of uncertain origin – Klein1987); if so, quṭrub_4 may originally have been the *‘plant that remains sticked (tied, towed) to s.o.’
▪ ^†quṭrub_5 ‘slippers | mules, chaussure sans quartier’: value given only by Dozy1881. The form qaṭārib is obviously a pl. of quṭrub, but in which of the latter’s many senses? Perh. ironical use of [v2], slippers being called the sandals with which one *‘roves around at night’?

1. »Zwei Gedichte von al-ʔAʕšâ, I: Mâ bukâʔu«, (SBAW, phil.-hist. Kl. 149), Wien 1905: 118, fn. 3. 2. in ZDMG, 32 (1878): 748, fn. 1, taken up by Fraenkel1886: 286. 3. »Origine grecque du mot Ḳoṭrob«, JA, 19 (1892): 156-59.

west

▪ Engl lycanthropy (n.), 1580 s, a form of madness (described by ancient writers) in which the afflicted thought he was a wolf, from Grk lukanθrōpia, from lukánθrōpos ‘wolf-man,’ from lúkos ‘wolf’ + ánθrōpos ‘man’ – EtymOnline.

1. Cf. the analogous Engl werewolf: < late oEngl werewulf ‘person with the power to turn into a wolf’, from wer ‘man, male person’ (from PIE root *wi-ro‑ ‘man’) + wulf ‘wolf’ (< protGerm *wulfaz – source also of oNo ulfr, Du, oHGe, Ge wolf –, from protIE *wlkwo‑ ‘wolf’ – source also of Skr vrkas, Av vehrka‑, Ru volcica, oPers varkana‑ "Hyrcania," district southeast of the Caspian Sea, literally "wolf-land;" probably also Grk lúkos, Lat lupus). Belief in them was widespread in the Middle Ages. Similar formation in mDu weerwolf, oHGe werwolf, Swed varulf. In the ancient Persian calendar, the eighth month (October-November) was Varkazana‑, literally ‘(month of the) wolf-men.’

deriv

► qaṭraba, vb. I, to hasten, speed, go quickly; to throw down, prostrate (s.o.) on the ground – Lane vii (1885): denom.
► taqaṭraba, vb. II, to move about one’s head; to make o.s. resemble the quṭrub, become like a quṭrub – Lane vii (1885): Gt-stem, denom.

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